MCW Cardiovascular/Heart Disease/Cardiothoracic Surgery News

July 29 - Froedtert Hospital and the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) are recruiting identical twins for a clinical study that will determine what kind of modifications to one’s genetic code would lead to higher blood pressures. Mingyu Liang, PhD, professor of Physiology, and Srividya Kidambi MD, assistant professor of Medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin, are the lead investigators for the study.

July 27 - In a front page article, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports on plans by Dr. Michael Mitchell and Aoy Tomita-Mitchell, PhD, (both Surgery – Cardiothoracic Pediatrics) to house their new company – Tai Diagnostics, Inc. - in the UWM Innovation Accelerator. At Tai Diagnostics, the Mitchells are developing a blood test for determining whether a heart-transplant recipient is in danger of rejecting the new heart. The test would replace invasive biopsies. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

July 28 - Dr. George Haasler comments to Fox-TV/Channel 6 on the case of a woman who successfully received a lung transplant at Froedtert Hospital. Before the transplant, the woman was dying of a rare lung disorder known as Ideopathic Pleural-parenchymal Fibroelastosis. Fox 6 Now

July 20 - Froedtert & MCW’s Heart & Vascular Center is among the first sites selected to participate in the American College of Cardiology SMARTCare Program. The innovative pilot program is designed to support physicians and stable ischemic heart disease patients in making decisions together about care based on the patient's unique history and the latest treatment criteria. Biz Times

July 7 - More than 100 media outlets nationwide reported on an Institute of Medicine report calling for more research funding and public awareness of cardiac arrest, the third leading cause of death among Americans. Dr. Tom Aufderheide (Emergency Medicine), one of the report’s authors, said, “Any CPR and any defibrillation delivered by the public are better than no care at all.” Philly.com and WPR

July 1 - The Institute of Medicine (IOM) released a report on cardiac arrest, the third biggest killer of Americans. The panel found many people do not understand cardiac arrest, and many are unwilling to intervene through the use of CPR and defibrillators. Tom Aufderheide, professor of emergency medicine and a member of the IOM, was on the panel who created the study and participated in a national news conference releasing the results.Philly.com

June 15 - The Froedtert & MCW Pulmonary Hypertension Service is one of nine centers nationwide to be designated a Pulmonary Hypertension Care Center by the Pulmonary Hypertension Association. The status recognizes excellence and specialization in the treatment of patients with pulmonary hypertension. There are now 26 designated centers nationwide. Pulmonary Hypertension News

June 9 - U.S. News & World Report has ranked Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin in nine specialties in the new 2015-16 Best Children’s Hospitals rankings. This ranking is just one of a number of awards that recognizes Children’s as one of the top children’s hospitals in the nation.

May 29 - Tom Aufderheide, MD, professor of emergency medicine, and Michael Mitchell, MD, professor of surgery (cardiothoracic) and chief of pediatric cardiothoracic surgery, were named winners of the Milwaukee Business Journal 2015 Eureka Award. Dr. Aufderheide was honored in the Lifetime Achievement category for being an international leader in methods of lifesaving resuscitation.

May 27 - The American Heart Association (AHA) awarded MCW a four-year, $3.7 million grant to create a Strategically Focused Hypertension Research Center. MCW is one of four research centers nationwide that will form the AHA’s national hypertension network. Waukesha Now

May 19 - Diet and other lifestyle and environmental factors can change your genes, which could make you susceptible to high blood pressure, or hypertension, and could be inherited. Now, researchers and physicians at the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) are working to determine exactly how that happens—and why.

May 13 - Drs. Mobin Malik and Michael Widlansky authored an editorial in Vascular Medicine on studies that found that sudden cardiac death is the leading cause of death among on-duty firefighters. Cardiac death accounts for 42 percent of the deaths of on-duty firefighters over the past five years. Science Daily

May 13 - Dr. Gary Gibbons, Director of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) met with students and faculty when he visited MCW on May 6 and delivered a lecture entitled, “Charting Our Future Together.” The NHLBI supports a significant number of cardiovascular research studies at MCW. Wauwatosa Now

May 7 - Dr. Gary Seabrook (Surgery – Vascular) discussed risk factors for abdominal aortic aneurysms at a public presentation on May 2 at Froedtert. AAAneurysm Outreach hosted the event which included free ultrasound screenings for at-risk individuals. More than one million Americans are living with undiagnosed abdominal aortic aneurysms. If the aneurysm bursts, only 10-25 percent of victims will survive. Community Journal

May 6 - In a presentation at the American Association for Thoracic Surgery’s annual meeting, Dr. G. Hossein Almassi (Surgery – Cardiothoracic) reported on a study he led that found that there is no difference in patient outcomes or graft patency between resident physicians and attending surgeons when it came to coronary artery bypass grafting. Science 20

Apr. 21 - The Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) has received a five-year, $9 million grant from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of General Medical Sciences to investigate the mechanisms responsible for the susceptibility of diabetic hearts to cardiac injury.

Apr. 20 - The Milwaukee Business Journal reports that MCW researchers will partner in an $8.5 million NIH grant to Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center. The five-year award, from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, will continue research on how hormones might contribute to heart disease and irregular heartbeats. Milwaukee Business Journal

Apr. 20 - MCW is one of four institutions selected to study hypertension as part of the American Heart Association’s four-year, $15 million Strategically Focused Research Network on Hypertension. The three other centers are University of Alabama at Birmingham, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, and the University of Iowa. UAB News

Apr. 16 - The Milwaukee Business Journal provides a photo tour of the $140 million Froedtert & MCW Center for Advanced Care, an eight-story building that will house expanded facilities for heart, vascular, and transplant surgery programs. The facility is scheduled to be completed in the fall. Milwaukee Business Journal

Apr. 14 - Froedtert & MCW and Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin are two of the four Wisconsin Hospital’s named to Becker’s Hospital Review’s list of “100 Hospitals, Health Systems with Great Heart Programs.” Other Wisconsin hospitals named to the list are Aurora St. Luke’s Medical Center, and St. Mary’s Hospital in Madison. Steam Feed

Mar. 25 - Researchers at the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) will conduct a research study to test whether patients who have life-threatening or life-altering traumatic brain injuries do better when they receive a medication called Tranexamic Acid (TXA), which is used to stabilize bleeding in the body.

Mar. 23 - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the ResQCPR System, a system of two devices for first responders to use while performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Dr. Tom Aufderheide (Emergency Medicine) was lead investigator for the clinical trial for the ResQCPR system. Health Canal and Waukesha Now

Mar. 10 - The Daily Mail (United Kingdom) reports on a study by Dr. Jacquelyn Kulinski that found that for every hour that adults spend sitting, the levels of artery deposits are increased by 14 percent. Dr. Kulinski presented her research at an American College of Cardiology meeting. Daily Mail and Science Daily

Mar. 9 - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the ResQCPR System, a system of two devices for first responders to use while performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) on people whose hearts stop beating (cardiac arrest). The devices may improve the patient’s chances of surviving cardiac arrest.

Mar. 4 - Jared Bozeman (M-3) authored a medical student perspective in the American College of Physicians’ newsletter on what it meant to him to be identified as a bone marrow donor match. American College of Physicians

Mar. 3 - In an interview with Milwaukee BizTimes, Paul Goldspink, PhD, (Physiology) discusses his research to restore organ function by exploiting aspects of the chemical and physical environment of the heart. He has created biodegradable microstructures that are bioengineered to be the same size, shape and stiffness as adult heart muscle cells, which keeps the tissue from seeing the microstructures as foreign objects and rejecting them. The findings were recently published in the international science journal Biomaterials. Biz Times

Mar. 3 - Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin and Milwaukee Public Schools celebrated the 10th anniversary of Project Adam; a campaign to place AEDs in schools. The campaign was founded by Dr. Stuart Berger who is now at the University of California – Davis. WISN, Fox6Now and Milwaukee Community Journal

Feb. 24 - The Milwaukee Business Journal reports that Dr. James Tweddell has been named Executive Co-Director of the Heart Institute at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. A national search will be conducted to find Dr. Tweddell’s successor at MCW and Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin.

Feb. 17 - The International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation (ILCOR) named Dr. Tom Aufderheide (Emergency Medicine) a “Giant of Resuscitation Medicine.” ILCOR is an organization that serves as a liaison for resuscitation organizations across the globe. Wauwatosa Now

Feb. 9 - Paul Goldspink, PhD is lead author of an article published in Biomaterials that describes work by MCW scientists to create bioengineered structures that are the same size, shape and stiffness as heart muscle cells, work that may one day help doctors repair heart tissue and prevent heart failure.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Shiny Shiny and, Nanowerk

Feb. 6 - The International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation (ILCOR), an organization that serves as a liaison for resuscitation organizations across the globe, has named Tom Aufderheide, MD, a “Giant of Resuscitation Medicine.”

Jan. 29 - The 19th Annual Steve Cullen Healthy Heart Club Run & Walk will be held on Saturday, February 14, at Underwood Parkway in Wauwatosa. The event supports research conducted at MCW’s Cardiovascular Center. Biz Times

Jan. 28 - The delivery of tiny biodegradable microstructures to heart tissue damaged by heart attack may help repair the tissue and prevent future heart failure. A team led by cardiovascular researchers at the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) bioengineered the microstructures to be the same size, shape and stiffness as adult heart muscle cells, or cardiomyocytes, with the goal of releasing biologically active peptides that act as cardioprotective agents.

Jan. 21 - The 19th Annual Steve Cullen Healthy Heart Club Run & Walk will be held on Saturday, February 14, at Underwood Parkway in Wauwatosa. The event supports research conducted at MCW’s Cardiovascular Center. Wauwatosa Now

Jan. 16 - The 19th Annual Steve Cullen Healthy Heart Club Run & Walk will be held on Saturday, February 14 at 10:00 a.m. at Wil-O-Way Recreation Center, 10602 Underwood Parkway in Wauwatosa. The event supports heart research at the Cardiovascular Center at the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW), in which more than 170 faculty physicians and research scientists study the causes, prevention and treatment of heart disease.

Jan.7 - Dr. Jennifer Strande authored an editorial in the Journal of Molecular and Cellular Cardiology on the impact of stress on heart disease. The editorial accompanied an article on a Loyola University Stritch School of Medicine study that found that environmental stress is a trigger for activating a gene for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Stoneheart Newsletter

Dec. 1 - In an interview with Wisconsin Public Radio, Dr. Tom Aufderheide discusses an NIH-funded cardiac arrest clinical trial to determine which of two chest compression techniques used by emergency responders provides the best outcomes. Milwaukee is one of 11 North American cities where the clinical trial is being conducted. WPR

Nov. 26 - The survival rate for cardiac arrest in Milwaukee County has been reported one of the highest in the United States, at 12.5 percent compared to less than eight percent for the rest of the country. Research of new, innovative and more effective treatments led by the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW), in partnership with Milwaukee County Emergency Medical Services (EMS), is credited for the rise in survival rates.

Oct. 30 - An agreement between Columbia St. Mary’s and Froedtert & the Medical College of Wisconsin health care network will expand current cardiothoracic surgery programs at Columbia St. Mary’s Hospital Milwaukee and Columbia St. Mary’s Hospital Ozaukee. Bayside Now

Oct. 3 - A collaborative team of researchers from the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) has received a one-year, $50,000 grant from the Clinical and Translational Science Institute of Southeast Wisconsin (CTSI) to study the effects of physical activity on the vascular aging process.

Oct. 1 - Andreas Beyer, PhD is principal investigator of a two-year, $470,000 grant from the Office of the Director of the NIH to generate and characterize novel disease models of use for the greater scientific community. Wauwatosa Now

Sept. 23 - The Medical College of Wisconsin has received a two-year, $470,000 exploratory grant from the Office of the Director of the National Institutes of Health to generate and characterize novel disease models of use for the greater scientific community.

Sept. 15 - Becker’s Hospital Review named Froedtert & MCW and Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin as two of the nation’s top 100 hospitals and health systems with great heart programs. Becker's Hospital Review

Sept. 03 - The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that Cellular Dynamics International (CDI) in Madison received a U.S. patent on the automated production of cells that can be grown into any of the more than 200 types of cells in the body. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Sept. 02 - Mingyu Liang, PhD received a four year, $1.5 million grant from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute to study the role of a specific microRNA in the development of hypertension and associated kidney injury. Wauwatosa Now

Aug. 29 - Cellular Dynamics International Inc., a Madison-based biotechnology company, was granted a patent for its stem cell production automation process. Ulrich Broeckel, MD, professor of pediatrics (genetics) and an investigator at the Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin Research Institute, discussed the importance of this patent and how it will help research at MCW. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Aug. 26 - The Medical College of Wisconsin has received a four year, $1.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health’s National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute to study the role of a specific microRNA in the development of hypertension and associated kidney injury.

Aug. 26 - Dr. Anand Padmanabhan received a one-year, $50,000 grant from the Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute of Southeast Wisconsin to study accurate and timely diagnosis of heparin-induced thrombocytopenia and thrombosis. Wauwatosa Now